Page 6 of Pride High 2: Orange

His mother wasn’t around for once. Ricky took the stairs two at a time, grabbed a jacket from his bedroom closet, and made sure his computer was off before turning to leave. He noticed the floppy disk sitting on the desk and was struck by inspiration. Ricky grabbed it and went across the hall to the office, where his father’s computer was. He inserted the disk, opened the file, and typed a command to print the article he’d been working on. The dot matrix printer was insanely loud, sounding like a screeching cat, as it slowly printed one line after the other. He was certain his mother would walk in at any moment and demand to know what he was doing.

She didn’t. Maybe she was taking a nap. He felt guilty, thinking about how much sleep she had probably lost because of him. What he was about to do would make her worry even more, but Ricky was going crazy. He needed to feel normal again. At least he was leaving behind a note of sorts. The printer finally finished. Ricky tore off a sheet of paper at the perforated line. Then he darted across the hall to his room, left the article on his pillow, and rushed down stairs.

“One beep for yes, two beeps for no,” his father called when hearing him come down the stairs. “Are you coming to watch the rest with me or not?”

“Beep!” Ricky shouted before slipping out the front door.

A wood-paneled station wagon waited at the end of the driveway with its engine running, just as he’d asked. Ricky ran toward it. Mindy got out as he neared, holding open the passenger-side door. He dove inside, the car lurching forward as soon as Mindy was seated again. They were all laughing as Cameron sped down the street.

“We did it!” Mindy cried.

“They’ll never find us!” Cameron cackled. “We’ll change our names and move to another state.”

“We should dye our hair,” Mindy said. “I’m going blond.”

“Me too,” Ricky said with a grin.

“Same here,” Cameron chimed in, putting on a funny accent. “We’ll tell everyone that we’re a family from Sweden.”

“Then we better pick up my big brother,” Ricky said, thinking of the recent conversation he’d had with Anthony. For much of the school year, they had been rivals, competing for the same guys without even knowing it. They had hurt each other without intending to. Now they’d promised to bury the hatchet and start again. As friends.

“Brother?” Cameron asked, sounding confused. “Should I turn the car around?”

“No, I mean Anthony, the guy that you’re—” He shot a glance at Mindy before censoring himself. “—such good friends with.”

Ricky heard a delicate snort on his right. On his left, Cameron was biting down on his lower lip, but he didn’t manage to contain the smile that broke free. “Really? You want to include him?”

Ricky nodded. “Why not? The more the merrier!”

* * * * *

Anthony Cullen hated Thanksgiving. It gave his relatives the perfect excuse to repeat their favorite criticism:You’re too skinny! Just look at your brothers. Don’t you want to be big and strong like they are? You need to eat more.On and on it went. Enough that he was beginning to feel like he had an eating disorder, despite consuming three meals a day and snacking whenever he felt like it. Anthony was tempted to stuff food in his mouth until it spilled out and covered his chin, just to shut them up. But he needed to save his appetite, because Great-aunt Dorothy would be here soon.

“What happened to your hair?” his cousin Dennis asked. They were the same size and age, which was all they had in common. Dennis stared at him with a dull expression. “Was it a dare?”

Anthony’s hair currently went from black at the tips to pink in the middle and blond when reaching the roots. He’d considered dyeing it before the holiday, especially since he still had half a jar of red Manic Panic, but he thought the three different tones looked cool. And his mother had agreed.

He definitely had an easier time with her side of the family. Like him, they were thin and tended to think more than they spoke. All except for Dennis, who was still staring at him with lifeless eyes while waiting for an answer.

“My mom was practicing on me,” he lied. She was a hairstylist and always willing to help him experiment, but not because she needed the practice. His mom was awesome at what she did.

“Really?” his cousin asked.

“Yeah,” Anthony replied with a theatrical sigh. “I didn’t want her to touch my hair, but she said I’d be grounded if I didn’t go along with it. Your parents don’t do that sort of thing?”

His cousin turned to consider the living room, as if trying to remember who his parents were. Anthony followed his gaze. From the corner they were currently squeezed into, he could see a mass of bodies. His uncle’s family was visiting from New Jersey, dominating their small house with their large frames and loud voices. Filling in what little space remained was his mother’s side of the family, who were from the Midwest and trying very hard not to get in anyone’s way.

“I would have let them ground me,” his cousin said at last. “Your hair looks like roadkill.”

“Thanks,” Anthony grumbled, even less thrilled to be sharing a bedroom with him for the next three days. As soon as Thanksgiving was over, he was going to ask Omar if he could stay at his house for the rest of the long weekend. Although he would rather stay with his boyfriend, even in secrecy. He’d already suggested the idea jokingly.

My dad is in town all weekend, Cameron had replied.And that changes things.

Anthony had kissed away his troubled frown, although now he wished he’d remembered to follow up on the strained undertones of that statement. But they’d continued to kiss and—

“Anthony!” he heard his mother call. “Aunt Dorothy is here!”

“Here we go,” Anthony said under his breath. He stood and gave his cousin a nod, taking solace that Dennis would be the one smelling sulfuric farts all night. He’d make sure to sleep above the sheets so his cousin got a nice heady whiff.